


A Long Awaited Dance

by SymphonyWizard



Category: Smallville
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 10:24:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13925184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SymphonyWizard/pseuds/SymphonyWizard
Summary: Revised versionClark’s dream of dancing with Lana Lang has finally come true.  So why is he drawn to a certain intrepid reporter?Spirit fix.





	A Long Awaited Dance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Fallen_Sky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Fallen_Sky/gifts), [melindawriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melindawriter/gifts), [BigRed67](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BigRed67/gifts).



Clark can’t believe he’s here now.  When he came here with Lois—or actually, Dawn Stiles who was dressed up as Lois—he had no idea that Lana would eventually come.  When he saw her a few minutes ago, in this ice pink strapless gown with her hair in a slink curtain down her back…he’s still surprised he had the guts to walk up to her and say,

“May I have this dance?”

More surprising yet, she accepted.  Now he’s dancing with her.  It’s like a dream come true.  For so many years, he’s dreamed of just sharing this one intimate, uncomplicated moment with Lana Lang.  He hoped to share a dance with her their freshman year, but he was robbed of that chance when Whitney Fordman made him that year’s scarecrow.

This time, she doesn’t even have a kryptonite necklace keeping him at least five feet away from her.  He almost smirks at remembering the bets Chloe and Pete made with each other over how close he could get to Lana without tripping.  He doubts the two of them ever saw her having the opportunity to actually be around her, let alone touch or dance with her.

All year he had been trying to work his way back to her.  There were setbacks including their messy history and her relationship with that older guy, Jason Teague.  No more.  At least he hopes that there will be no more setbacks.  

He loves Lana Lang.  He has loved her for as long as he can remember.  From the days when all he could do was admire her from a distance, through a telescope in his loft, to his awkward attempts at making conversation, to eventually getting stuck in a rut.  He doesn’t want to be in a runt anymore.  There will be no rut anymore. 

Lana lifts her head from his chest and they lock eyes.  How could Clark ever grow tired of looking into those eyes?  Everything about Lana Lang is just…perfect.  He’s even seen her without her clothes on once or twice.  The most vivid memory he has is when she was infected with a parasite and she seduced him into the school’s swimming pool.  Since then, her body has been burned into his memory, sometimes leaving him with a longstanding desire to touch it.

Lana lifts her head slightly.  It’s the moment he’s been waiting for.  Clark lowers his own head just as slightly, barely suppressing the excitement he feels. 

Before their lips touch however, he freezes abruptly.  His ears have picked something up.  He hears the sound of crying.  He knows those cries.  He knows that voice.

“Chloe...” _oops_ , Clark realizes he said that out loud as Lana’s eyes fly open.  There’s obvious confusion, like “Uh, dude, I’m Lana,” written all over her face, as well as an underlying bit of anger.  Just what a girl wants to hear—a guy saying a _different_ girl’s name when he’s about to kiss her. 

Lana breaks away from him with a huff and Clark feels the tingle of where her hands were. 

“I’m sorry, Lana, I have to go,” he regrets it as soon as he says it, but he needs to check on his best friend.  

Carefully navigating through the crowd of slow-dancing couples, Clark makes his way out of the gym.  On his way, he sees Lois, still sitting at a table with a plate piled high with snacks.  Clark thinks it’s a good thing that she’s probably not going to be dancing with anyone.  If she has no breath mints in her purse…it’s nicer to dance with someone when they don’t have bad breath.  Lana’s breath was nice.  He is sure his own breath is nice.  He took extra care in brushing his teeth and doing everything to make sure there was no foulness to his breath.

Lois stops between bites of pretzels and they lock eyes briefly.  Clark shrugs and heads out of the gym, hardly registering the shocked Lana still standing alone.

Now that he is away from the sound of Lifehouse and people, he can focus more on where the sound of Chloe is coming from.  He has a pretty good idea.  Seeing that there’s no one around, he bursts into superspeed.  He slows to a stop a few feet away from the Torch office. 

He takes a few gentle steps toward it.  Narrowing his eyes, he sees through to wall.  Chloe is sitting at her computer.  Her chin is propped on her fist as she stares at the screen.  Fresh tears that are her own have smeared her cheeks with fresh downward streaks.  What is she so sad about?  She’s prom queen.  Admittedly, he blindsided her by nominating her, but he did it because…well because…

Clark doesn’t know why he nominated Chloe.  What he does know is that he doesn’t like seeing Chloe cry. 

Snapping out of his x-ray vision moment, mostly because his eyes had started to travel lower towards Chloe’s chest for some reason, Clark clears his throat and steps in front of the door.  With a deep breath, he reaches out and knocks.

Even without seeing through the door or focusing his hearing, he can tell the sound startled Chloe.  Then he hears some scrambling, then some approaching footsteps, and finally the doorknob in front of him begins to jiggle.  As the door swings open, Clark straightens up.  Chloe takes a sharp intake of breath. 

Seeing her face to face, Clark thinks she looks even worse than he thought.

“Clark,” says Chloe, clearing her throat.  “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” he counters.  “Are you okay?”

Chloe looks away as she quickly wipes her eyes.  “I’m fine, I’m fine.  I just got something in my eye, that’s all.”

Clark’s not buying it.  “May I come in?”

Chloe shrugs.  “Sure, why not.  It’s a free country.”

The lack of Chloe-like humor behind that snark worries Clark. 

“Can I ask what’s wrong?” he asks as he walks in and takes a seat in the chair across from her. 

“I don’t know, can you?” Chloe fires back.

Clark scowls at her.  “ _May_ I ask what’s wrong?”

Chloe shakes her head vigorously.  “Shouldn’t you be all glued to your precious Lana Lang right now?”

The question hits Clark like a bucket of ice water.  Not that something like that would affect him much, but the shock of it, maybe.  As he thinks of it, he’s sure Lana is wondering where the hell he is and why he isn’t back yet.  Weirdly, she is not his concern right now. 

“Chloe what were you looking at when I walked in?” he asks suspiciously.

Chloe gulps and clears her throat.  “Um, nothing.”

“Seriously, Chloe, what was it?” repeats Clark. 

“Clark, please just leave me alone,” pleads his best friend as she frantically moves around the mouse.

He can’t take it anymore.  Before Chloe can react, he gets up and rounds over to her computer.

“Clark, please…” she sobs. 

Looking at her taskbar, he sees that she minimized whatever she was looking at instead of closing it.  Ignoring Chloe’s pleadings, he clicks on it and opens it up.  What he sees opens a wound he didn’t know he still had. 

They are photos from his and Chloe’s Spring Formal.  Memories flash through his mind.  He remembers how nervous he was.  Several times, he asked his dad if he did his tie right or if he lint-rolled his suit thoroughly.  The only thing that he was confident about before Chloe drove up to his house in that unbelievable dress of hers was the corsage.  He knew she would be wearing something pink, but he had no idea what to expect. 

When he saw Chloe in that dress, her hair normally cropped and devoid of decoration all piled up on top of her head, he was at a loss for words. 

“Too pink,” Clark says reminiscently.

“What?”

“That’s what you asked me,” Clark clarifies, taking his eyes off the computer screen.  “You asked me if your dress was too pink.”

Chloe laughs wryly through her tears.  “You know, I don’t actually remember that.  Some evening it turned out to be.  But I learned a very important lesson that day.”

“What’s that?” asks Clark, fearing the answer. 

“Clark Kent can’t keep his promises.” 

The dryness of her tone and the underlying venom hit Clark like a block of kryptonite.  Weirdly enough, he is angry instead of hurt.  “Now I’m going to say this once, so you listen well.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Not a day goes by that I don’t wish that evening could have gone better,” Clark whispers. 

“That’s a double negative.”

“Whatever, but I was completely ready to make it up to you afterwards, but you just wanted to be ‘really good friends’,” continues Clark. 

“I was lying, Clark!” screams Chloe.

He blinks several times.  “What?”

“Yeah, _big_ surprise!” laughs Chloe mirthlessly.  “I was hurt that you left me all alone on that dance floor and you never even came back to check up on me.  I wanted so desperately to be more than just your best friend, but not if you didn’t want me.”

“I wanted you,” whispers Clark, his voice breaking.

“You sure made a hell of an effort.”

“I thought that you didn’t want me that way.”

“Oh!” exclaims Chloe, throwing up her hands.  “You big, stupid farm boy, of course I wanted you.  I was testing you.  I wanted you to _fight for me_.  That’s why I pulled the friendship card on you.  I was putting up my defenses because I couldn’t stand the thought of you just being with me because you felt _obligated_!”

“I did not feel obligated,” Clark corrects her.  “That same moment that I offered to make it up for leaving you, I was brainstorming ways that I would have done it.  Chief among them, a Spring Formal do-over.  Yes, I was confused about my lingering feelings for Lana, but I wanted you!  So don’t you dare sit there and tell me what I felt!

“I didn’t pursue you because I couldn’t stand losing you.”

Chloe frowns as she cocks her head.  “Lose me?”

Clark turns away from her as he begins to sob.  “God, Chloe, you’re a gorgeous girl—no _woman_ —and if we had dated and then broken up, it would have ruined me.  Call me a coward, but I would rather just continue to be your best friend rather than risk the fallout of a breakup.”  Oh, great, now he is crying about as hard as she was. 

Eventually, he feels a gentle hand on his shoulder.  “Clark, even if we ended up breaking up, you still would have been my best friend.”

Clark turns his head slightly.  “Really?”

“Yes, you idiot,” Chloe confirms. 

They sit in silence for several minutes as Clark lifts his own hand to cup Chloe’s.  He hears her breath hitch in her throat at the touch.  She grasps his fingers.  Even without focusing his hearing, Clark hears the music coming from the gym.

He spins around gently and looks his best friend in the eye.  “Say, um…uh, do you want to dance?”

Chloe’s eyes glitter with fresh tears as she pulls her hand away.  “Clark, I’m not going back in there.  And you have Lana...”

“Chloe,” he cuts her off as he rises to his feet.  He goes over to the boom box and opens the drawer below it.  After a minute or two of sifting through the CDs, he finds one suitable.  He’s a little disappointed not to find the Remy Zero CD with the song that was played at their Spring Formal, but he thinks it will do. As he puts the CD in and skips to the right track, he hears Chloe laugh a little as the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris” starts playing. 

Then he returns to Chloe.  “I’m going to ask you again—may I have this dance?”  He offers her his hand.  “We can just stay right here in this room.”

Chloe glances down at Clark’s proffered hand then back up into his eyes.  Finally, she smiles and places her own pink nailed hand in his.  “I thought you’d never ask.”

Clark smiles as Chloe rises to her feet.  Leading her to a more open space, Clark brings her in close and they start moving to the acoustic guitar and raspy vocals of the Goo Goo Dolls. 

As they dance, thoughts flood Clark’s mind.  When he danced with Lana, it felt like a dream that finally came true.  It is a reality that greatly outshone the dream.

He’s dancing with Chloe now, and it doesn’t feel like a dream come true.  It feels… _right_.  It feels familiar.  Instead of a fantasy that turned into a reality, it’s a long lost memory that been brought to the surface.  Not only is that lost memory filling him with nothing but bittersweet smiles, it actually feels even better than that memory ever did.

True to the song’s words, he’s realizing that he does want Chloe to know who he is.  As he stares down at her, all he can do is smile.  The cleavage is a major plus, but he can’t take his eyes off hers.  This isn’t that nervous freshman he almost kissed.  This is his best friend.  This is the girl that, even when they went through rough patches, he could go to when he had a bad day.  This is a girl—no _woman_ —that he can talk to for hours and still be left feeling like they never got to whatever it was they were trying to discuss. 

This is the woman he has been waiting to kiss. 

As if she read his mind, Chloe’s eyes flutter shut and her lips part.  Those cherry red lips are too inviting.  Clark’s lips descend and before his mind can catch up, he is kissing Chloe. 

She’s a little tentative at first. Clark tries to reassure her by holding her close and letting the kiss linger a bit.  Slowly, he feels a shift in her and she wraps her arms around his neck.  

Eventually they break apart, both breathless. 

Through his lust-filled gaze, he says, “I know I haven’t done much to deserve you, but I’d like a chance with you. If you’ll have me.”

Chloe sighs heavily.  “That kiss took a lot of effort, Clark.  I loved it, was even better than I even imagined it would, but it will take more than a kiss before I...” she trails off. 

“I’m willing to prove myself,” Clark promises. “As long as I have to.”

Chloe smiles. “You can start by being the same awkward guy I care about so much.”

”You’d love that, wouldn’t you,” sneers a voice Clark knows too well. 

He and Chloe turn to see Lana standing with her hands on her hips.  “You had to go, didn’t you Clark?  You dance with me and then you go crawling to this little...”

“Isn’t there an assistant coach—sorry former— assistant coach for you to be screwing?” Chloe asks softly.  “See doesn’t that make you more of whatever you were about to finish that sentence with than I’ll ever be?  Were you planning on using the word ‘whore’?  Or maybe ‘slut’?”

Without another word, Chloe smooths her dress and walks out of the Torch office.  Clark follows after her, but not before he stops to lock eyes with Lana who looks as if she had been punched in the face. 

He raises his chin to her pleading eyes. “Goodbye, Lana.”  Not looking back, he follows after Chloe. 

“Chloe wait!” he calls after her. 

“Are you going to scold me for insulting your precious Lana?” she asks without turning around.

Clark hurries up and cuts off her path. “No, I was going to say that you said what I had been thinking all year.”

She doesn’t look like she was expecting that.  She blushes furiously as she glances down at her feet.  Clark steps forward and places a finger under her chin, lifting her face to meet his gaze. 

“I really want to be your man.”

Chloe lifts an eyebrow and it’s one of the most beautiful things he has ever seen. Eventually a smile spreads across her lips.  “Really?”

”Positive.”

”Then you can start by buying me ice cream.”

Clark steps beside her and offers her his arm. As she wraps her hand around it, he says, “Deal.”


End file.
